There exist a variety of engineering means for separating banana pulp from its peel.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,157,065, “Juice extractor”, Shinko, issued Jun. 5, 1979, describes a device for extraction of fruit juice. This device includes a drum, the external surface of which is embraced by a closed, ring-shaped band with holes. Another band, spring-controlled by rollers, is situated above the first band. Fruits or other plant products are placed between the bands. The gap between the bands decreases in the direction of the product's movement, which causes separation (pressing-out) of the juice.
The device described in GB patent 2310429, “Dewatering brown coal”, issued Aug. 27, 1997, is intended for dewatering coal. The coal is thrown down from a hopper to the conveyer belt, and is pressed by another belt with rollers located behind the belt. The conveyer belt and the pressing belt are parallel to each other.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,482,615, “Apparatus for and method of removing pulp from a banana”, Greene et al., issued Sep. 27, 1967, contains a description of a device intended for separation of banana pulp from the banana peel. The device includes a feeding transporting conveyer and a pair of rotating rollers that press out banana pulp from the peel. The bananas are put on a feeding transporter, with their tips or stems oriented in the direction of the rollers. The conveyer moves the banana toward the rollers, its tip or stem gets into the gap between the rollers, and the banana peel is captured by the rollers' surfaces and pulled between them. The pulp is pressed out from the peel, falls into the gap between the edge of the feeding conveyer and the rollers, where it gets to the belt of another conveyer. With this design, the bananas should be fed to the rollers only in such a way that their tips or stems are oriented forward. If not, they will not be captured by the rollers, and the entire, non-peeled bananas will fall into the gap between the feeding transporting conveyer and the rollers.
If the transporting conveyer is adjacent to the surfaces of the rollers, the bananas can be sent to the rollers at any orientation, not only with their tips or stems facing the direction of the rollers. In this case, a special device will be required for the removal of the extracted banana pulp from the zone near the rollers. Additionally, when the bananas are oriented in parallel to the rollers, the rollers would need to be fairly wide to capture the banana peel.
Therefore, use of the device described in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,482,615 will require special positioning of the bananas, i.e. with their tips or stems facing the rollers. This will require special engineering modifications, which, on the whole, would make the equipment more complicated.